This ensemble piece ranges over a series of time zones, travelling from the near future to the early 20th century, mostly in Australia, but also the Ellis Island immigration centre in New York. Its main segment is a deceptively simple, kitchen-sink style, family drama in which home truths are exposed and conventional dishonesties unravelled.

Amid the smoke and mirrors of the Coalition’s federal budget, the Senate voted to formally censure far-right Senator Fraser Anning on April 3. Since then, the tone in this election campaign has been noticeably less tinged with race fear than looked likely just a few months ago.

A collective of alt-right and neo-Nazi groups organised what they called a “political meeting” at St Kilda beach on January 5. It came a week after the neo-Nazi Neil Erikson led a group of acolytes down to the same beach to harass and film African Australians in an attempt to incite violence.

On January 5, convicted neo-Nazi criminals Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson, and their followers, gathered on the foreshore of St Kilda beach to vilify Sudanese Australians and once again scapegoat that community as “African gangs”.

As an Australian living abroad, incidents of Australians being racist and/or misogynistisic that attract attention from international media outlets are frequently forwarded to me in anticipation of a seething refrain.

Looking at elections in the United States, deeper trends in the population can be difficult to discern as the choices are between two capitalist parties that are both staunch defenders of capitalist rule and US imperialism.

There are no mass workers’ parties of any stripe. If there were, we may be in a better position to understand the relation of class forces.

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In these days of growing media concentration, Green Left Weekly is a proudly independent voice committed to human and civil rights, global peace and environmental sustainability, democracy and equality. By printing the news and ideas the mainstream media won't, Green Left Weekly exposes the lies and distortions of the power brokers and helps us to better understand the world around us.